Pickford takes on survey preservation in county

Monday

Dec 31, 2012 at 1:00 PM

By Dennis PelhamDaily Telegram Staff Writer

ADRIAN — Digging up old stakes, bricks or broken plow points that mark survey points is a skill Kevin Pickford began developing as a college student. On Jan. 1, he becomes responsible for maintaining records of survey points established in Lenawee County in the 1820s.

Pickford is taking over as Lenawee County surveyor, a post held by Glenn Richard the past 40 years.

His training for the elected position started under Richard in 1994. Pickford said he was hired by Richard for summer work while he was a college student. He spent the summer digging for section corners, most often located at road intersections.One-mile squares were measured out by government surveyors in the early 19th century before land was sold to settlers. The wooden stakes they drove to mark their corners have been replaced over the years by other surveyors.

The survey points are the basis for measurements of all property in the county. And the county surveyor’s main job is to preserve those points with records and modern steel monuments.

There is no salary for the county surveyor. Work performed is compensated through a state-funded program for maintaining and updating survey monuments.

County surveyor work is a part-time service for Pickford, who is a partner in Associated Engineers & Surveyors in Adrian.

Pickford, a Sand Creek native, has spent most of his career with the company. After attending Adrian College and graduating from Ferris State College, he said, he worked six months in Ann Arbor before coming back to work with Richard as a surveyor.

More than six years ago he was appointed deputy county surveyor and took on more survey monument work.

Uncovering old survey points that have been preserved over the years with bricks, clay tile, broken iron tools and whatever else was available is a passion Pickford said he learned from Richard.

“It’s the history of it, and actually going out and finding those points,” he said. “It’s something that needs to be done.”

The points are usually found during road construction projects, and sometimes during drain commission excavations, he said. When equipment gets close to the buried markers, he said, he goes to work.

“That’s one thing I learned very quickly from Glenn. Your most important tool is your shovel,” Pickford said. The goal is to uncover the markers that surveyors wrote about finding or leaving behind without destroying them and losing the exact position, he said.

Some of the past surveyors who worked in the county left detailed notes while others wrote little, he said.

The county surveyor is responsible for gathering all survey notes and records for each point in chronological order and storing it in the county courthouse.In the field, the old markers that are dug up are replaced with steel rods that can be easily found with metal detectors.

Old markers that are dug up are sometimes left in place, along with the new steel monuments, he said.

He recalled searching at one corner for a marker a surveyor had described as a wagon skein. The hub of a wooden wagon wheel was the definition he found in a Google search.

“We dug down and sure enough it was there,” Pickford said. The skein was left in place after an iron monument was driven through the center, he said.